About Me

I come from a small Mediterranean island, where making art is seen only as a hobby, being a housewife is still a main occupation for women in Cyprus, an increasingly opinionated, xenophobic country, particularly after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Currently living in London, where these attitude and ideas are utterly antithetical to the narrow minded mentality of where I grew up, has been a great influence. My personal work is erected by stereotypes, gender, fuelled by notions of awkward situations, humiliation and embarrassment; I could say I am a social feminist and an introvert therefore my work can be understood as a self-observation, but also I include discussion of extrovertist forms. Inevitably being in any kind of environment reflects back on the way I portray my work and currently I find myself exploring these discourses through repetition and humour within performance, installations, sound and video art; affected by the metaphors of mass production of image, through media and the online. The main body of my outcome throughout the past year, though, has been built through ‘Panicattack’, which is a feminist performance art duo-collective consisting of myself and a Turkish artist, Naz Balkaya. Our common social feminist understanding was what evoked the beginning of our collaboration. Our nations, our religions, our societies, families and friends would say that we are meant to be enemies. Our ideas, beliefs, habits and views state the opposite; therefore, we embrace the concept of our separation through our collaborative efforts. We perform, we embody our work using our emotions about the modern society we live in; about the stress of being who you are. About our sex and temptations. Limitations. Embarrassment. Confusion. Panic. PANIC ATTACK. Inspired by young artists who use outspoken humour whilst at the same time maintaining critical view. We have performed in a variety of environments and different audiences, trying to gather as many reactions from our surroundings in order to be able to develop our work and to detect were it could be sitting in the current context of contemporary art. Not only for that, but moreover to reach platforms outside the white walls of a gallery space with the fellow artists as our only audience. We aim to challenge the viewer’s conception of art, encouraging them to engage with our pieces in alternative venues. We question social and cultural issues, we question contemporary art, but essentially we question our viewer. We are the surveyor and the sight; ‘Viewrs look at art, art watches itself being looked at. This determines not only the relationship of art and the viewer but the relationship of art to its own self’: John Berger. Adapting to different stages, and by using language, sound, visual media and a variety of props (projections, plinths, bins, wigs, paint and more) within our performances, led us to the interest in the meaning and creation of stage. This pushed us to organise and curate three off the wall exhibitions in the past year, where we explored performance, video and sound and had the chance to collaborate with the significant, to us, performance artist Dagmar I. Glausnitzer- Smith (Germany).

Languages Spoken